Gold defies the crash – Tocvan Ventures with historic results

Tocvan Ventures in an ideal position

The mining area in Sonora is known for its wealth of various minerals and metals. Mexico's second-largest state is located in the northwest of the country and is particularly known for its copper mines. In addition to copper, gold, silver, and molybdenum, other minerals are also mined in Sonora. Naturally, global mining giants such as Agnico Eagle, Fresnillo, First Majestic Silver, Coeur Mining, and Alamos Gold are active in the region. In the midst of this illustrious circle, Tocvan Ventures is developing Gran Pilar and Picacho, two advanced-stage gold-silver projects with significant potential.

The Gran Pilar project is currently the focus of development, with 27,000 meters of drilling having been carried out to date. Tocvan Ventures owns 100% of the rights to a prospective area of over 21 square kilometers and a majority interest of 51% in an area of 1 square kilometer. Colibri Resources holds the remaining minority interests.

Historic results

The results, published at the end of March, were historic and a milestone in the history of the Canadian company. Earlier this year, ten core drill holes totaling 1,167.5 meters were drilled in the Tocvan-majority-owned Main Zone. The best absolute values were 3.0 meters, grading 21.6 g/t gold, 209 g/t silver, and 6.7% lead. Another intercept of 3.8 meters returned 2.8 g/t gold, 38 g/t silver, and 2.3% tin. The broader anomalous zone extends from surface to a vertical depth of 64.9 meters, with an average grade of 1.2 g/t gold (JES-25-108).

The key highlight, however, is that this marks the first high-grade gold mineralization discovered at the southern end of the Main Zone corridor along the North Hill Trend, thereby establishing a new trend. Another advantage is that the mineralization starts just a few meters below surface, making it easily accessible for the upcoming trenching efforts. This opens up another area where the Company can define mineralization as potential feed material for the planned pilot mine.

Tocvan Ventures CEO Brodie Sutherland explains the latest results and business developments in a detailed interview

Pilot plant and further milestones

Further significant steps are planned for the current year, which could boost the current market capitalization of CAD 47.04 million. Tocvan Ventures is planning to develop a pilot plant on Pilar in addition to further drilling. An approval and operating strategy is currently underway that shows a scenario in which up to 50,000 tons of material could be processed. In addition, the initial resource estimate (PEA) is planned for the second half of the year.

Conclusion

Due to the strong news flow in recent weeks and a positive market environment for precious metals, Tocvan shares have gained over 63% since the beginning of the year. Due to the current weakness in the broader market, a brief setback to the horizontal support area at CAD 0.77 is conceivable. However, if drilling results continue to impress, a renewed upward move toward the all-time high of CAD 1.67 could be triggered.

The discrepancy in the Company valuation compared to the peer group is important. While the comparable company, Minera Alamos, has a market capitalization of almost CAD 159.35 million and an average grade of 0.65 g/t gold, the average grade for a bulk sample at Tocvan Ventures is 1.9 g/t gold and 7 g/t silver. The market capitalization is less than one-third by comparison.